News release: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today established a landmark “pollution diet” to restore clean water in Chesapeake Bay and the region’s streams, creeks and rivers. This pollution diet is driven primarily by jurisdictions’ plans to put all needed pollution controls in place by 2025 and EPA will hold jurisdictions accountable for results along the way. The pollution diet, formally known as the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), identifies the necessary reductions of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment from Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. The TMDL is shaped by an extensive public and stakeholder involvement effort during the past two years, coupled with detailed plans by jurisdictions for how they will achieve pollution reductions…Despite all of the extensive restoration efforts during the last 25 years, the TMDL was prompted by insufficient progress in restoring the Bay. The TMDL is required under federal law and responds to consent decrees in Virginia and D.C. dating back to the late 1990s. The TMDL, as well as evaluations of the state plans and EPA backstops and contingencies can be found here.”